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Greene offers bill to abolish Section 230
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Thursday is introducing a bill to abolish Section 230 — the law the protects online platforms from liability — on the heels of Twitter accepting Elon Musk's offer to buy the company and take it private.
Greene's bill would eliminate the law making online platforms not liable for content posted by third parties and replace it with a provision to require "reasonable, non-discriminatory access to online communications platforms" through a "common carrier" framework that Greene compared to airlines or package delivery services.
Republicans have long claimed that social media platforms have an anti-conservative bias, pointing to tweets that have been taken down and the removal of entire feeds from networks.
[....] Titled the 21st Century FREE Speech Act, Greene's measure will serve as the House version of a Senate bill sponsored by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.).
To combat the alleged bias against conservatives, it would prevent online communications platforms from exerting "undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, class of persons, political or religious group or affiliation, or locality" and would provide consumers a mechanism to sue for violations.
Should any platform be liable for someone else's speech? Even if they engage in moderation?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 29 2022, @11:52PM (9 children)
You know, I used to think so, too. A couple days ago a Soylentil in Australia said he'd rather pay the fine than vote this time. Apparently voting there is mandatory, something I never knew. Yet Australia built internment camps for people suspected of maybe perhaps having the coronavirus.
In other words, mandatory voting still hasn't produced sane public policy in that country either.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30 2022, @12:50AM (3 children)
Missing option on all ballots:
[x] No (None of the above)
I mean, if you want people to show up, you have to offer them a choice
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30 2022, @03:35AM (2 children)
Jo24!
Jo24!
Jo24!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30 2022, @05:56AM (1 child)
More like, "Never Again, Republicans". They go the way of the Whigs, only the Whigs did not go insane. But, you get the point, a party that loses the American people, is not longer a party. Republican party is dead, Tot, verkunft. Like that.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday May 02 2022, @12:52AM
However, due to your wonderful 2-party system, something needs to remain in place, even as a zombie.
The reality is that undead-RNC will continue to shuffle the halls, and the vote will really be "Democrat vs Not Democrat". That's basically what's happening today - nobody is really voting FOR the Republican's platform, because they don't actually have one. People are either voting for the Dems, or voting to get rid of the Dems (and accept whatever else takes their place).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30 2022, @02:05AM
These sentences
contradict this sentence
(Score: 5, Informative) by lentilla on Saturday April 30 2022, @04:54AM (3 children)
Yes, voting in Australia is mandatory. Every adult has to turn up every couple of years and post a ballot - it's very easy, and a tiny price to pay for living in a functional democracy.
Should one really not want to specify a choice, you simply take the ballot paper, fold it in half and post the empty form in the ballot box. (This is called an informal vote [aec.gov.au] but only accounts for four or five percent of the votes cast.)
For those interested, here is how the process works in Australia:
Voting day rolls around - it is always on a Saturday. At some point during the day you walk up to the local poling place (invariably a local school or hall). You wait in line for maybe ten minutes maximum, chat with the people next to you, and when your turn comes you walk up the person sitting at a desk with a big printed book and stack of sheets.
The official asks your name and finds it in their big book. They cross-check your address. Then they ask "Have you voted earlier today?", to which you answer "No". Note: no identification required. You get the appropriate ballot papers and walk over to one of the cardboard booths, number the ballot paper with the supplied stubby pencil, fold the paper in half, and on the way out deposit your ballot in the box. Done.
Polling locations close at 6pm (don't quote me on that) and the result of the vote is usually clear later the same evening. All done with paper and a bit of hard work on behalf of the election officials.
(Yes, one can vote by post. It was reasonably rare prior to COVID.)
Some rural folk might need to drive a couple of hours to a poling place - but no worry, it's Saturday, you probably had to go to town at some point, and poling day probably coincides with some kind of town fair.
Rural or city, voting day always has somewhat of a party atmosphere. Outside of the COVID era, many of the poling places have community groups selling sausage sandwiches.
What Australians do not see:
Gerrymandering is an issue, but that seems to be an issue the world over.
The worst part is that we end up with a politician in charge. Democracy never quite seems to live up to its promise!
In parting, I should also mention that Australia uses the Single Transferable Vote [wikipedia.org] system. The huge benefit (in comparison to First Past the Post [wikipedia.org]) is that you can afford to vote for the candidate you actually want. If they don't win, your vote isn't wasted, it gets applied to your next choice.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30 2022, @06:40PM (1 child)
"No guns. Everyone is safe and comfortable."
What a stupid bitch. You're just a sitting duck, cowardly slave. Wait until the sand niggers you keep letting the Jews bring in start attacking at will.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday May 02 2022, @12:56AM
I don't know about you, but I come here for the high quality thoughtful posts and the intellectualism shown in reasoned debate.
(Score: 1) by loki on Monday May 02 2022, @02:23AM
Compulsory voting helps democracy because it samples the entire population, not just the extreme fringes.
Single transferable vote (ranking candidates) helps because your vote is never wasted. If your first ranked choice isn't going to win, your vote moves on to your second choice, then your third choice if necessary, etc, until someone wins. In Australia you have the choice to vote for a political party, or for the individual candidates separately, so if you like a party but not a certain member of that party, you can break up your ranking to place that person after other members of the same party, or even after members of other parties. So you can rank parties, or rank individuals separately.
In the last decade in Australia, the removal of party preference backroom deals also has reduced confusion among voters. Before 2013, you couldn't tell if a vote for a certain party could be redirected to some other party if your chosen first party didn't win a seat. There were backroom preference deals that allowed parties to direct the flow of votes a certain way, and you had to look up the official election website to see what deals were in place. I remember making a spreadsheet that year to see which parties were preferencing which other parties. But that practice was abolished after the 2013 election, so your votes can only be redirected if you explicitly write further preferences such as second, third, fourth. So now, the only preference deals are what's shown on the party-specific how-to-vote cards the marketing people hand out on voting day outside the voting venues.
Lastly, polls close at 6pm, and we use pencil and paper, and get a result almost always on the night. We have confidence in that method because we don't use voting machines which could be tampered with remotely or via hacking.